Colton Egberg remembers the day his grandmother died after a two-year battle with cervical cancer: May 5, 2012.

Colton, an eighth grader at Tahoma Junior High, also remembers the night three months earlier when his friend Cameron slept over and helped him make fliers to hand out so he could raise money for cancer research.

“I went around the neighborhood asking for money,” Colton said. “I was thinking I didn’t want anybody else to suffer, I wanted to try to make sure nobody else went through this.”

An energetic 13 year old his dad Joel described as a good salesman going back to his Cub Scout days slinging popcorn to raise money, Colton would get home from school, do his homework then head out to knock on the doors of his neighbors. He would hand them a flier and explain what he was doing. Then he would head home for dinner, typically with about $100 in hand.

In 2012, inspired by the battle his grandmother fought but ultimately lost, Colton raised $5,000. In addition to his door-to-door work, which raised $3,000, family and friends donated another $2,000 at her funeral. They dropped donations into a big box after the pastor who officiated the service told those who attended what the boy was doing. Some donated directly to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Colton said, including one person who wrote a check for $500.

This year, though, Colton has a new goal: raise $10,000.

He plans to continue to knock on the doors of neighbors and reactivate a PayPal account he used last year for online donations. Colton will host a cancer rally April 21 at Lake Wilderness Park in Maple Valley. He’s spoken in all of his classes at school about the rally and asked Chris Feist, the dean of students at the junior high, about allowing Colton to do a fundraiser at school.

There are more plans for the summer, Colton said, as he has set a deadline of September to raise the money. All money raised will go to Fred Hutchinson.

Colton chose Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center because it was the one place he knew about when he was in seventh grade.

“That was the main one,” Colton said. “It seems like that’s the biggest place. I always hear about it.”

He just wants to help and Colton is driven to raise money, so driven in fact, he doesn’t think too much about how his efforts will help others. His focus is to raise money.

This focus has impressed his father.

“He just did everything himself and I was really surprised how at this young of an age to grab onto something like that,” Joel Egberg said. “The door-to-door was the most impressive for me because of the work you did. The effort that he put in was amazing.”

Joel Egberg contacted representatives of The Hutch to set up a meeting so they can figure out the details of the donation Colton wants to eventually make when he reaches his goal.

“When I think about cancer I think about how much money it takes and sometimes it seems out of reach,” Joel Egberg said. “I’m just very proud of what he does and he’s a great kid. I’m just flabbergasted how at such a young age he’s so driven to raise money and it’s such a good cause.”

Meanwhile, Colton continues to make plans to raise money. He’ll never forget the day his Grammy died and he’ll work hard to make sure no one else has a day like that to remember.